The only alternative available...... in medicine (being a doctor) there is a
dictum, you only need one exception to the rule to disprove a dogmatic
belief / theory.
London tubes do 3.5 million passenger trips per day, London buses carry
double this number. And its a traditional bus service with handful of bus
lanes.
Same is true with Mumbai buses considering they do not cover the length of
tracks beyond corporation limits as the trains do. BEST does 4.5 million
trips a day in a geographically smaller area. Considering that in Mumbai
population has shot to 20 million (against London's 8m) they have half the
number of buses than in London and no bus lanes. Those keen may look up
Chennai buses and their numbers. Bangalore also has a bus service managing
3m trips a day.
In Mumbai 60 odd flyovers (which are no use to buses) have made life a hell
by trying to make way for more cars. Mumbai actually has the sea link as its
best TDM example, the sea link will come to a halt if its use was FREE.
The bottom line is to free up our roads and use buses - they offer a door to
door service as against trains and even BRT which need dedicated corridors -
it takes me 20 minutes walking to get to stations (it takes 8 minutes on
average to walk 500 meters) for my daily commute in London by train while
bus stops are just outside on main street. Even after changing buses and
respecting 3 dozen signals on road, the bus on average is only 10 minutes
more. Halve the cars and the bus would beat the train!!
Further, our city planners and slum redevelopment authorities want to place
half a million daily wage earners who live and work in their shanties of
Dharavi producing $1 billion worth of turnover every year in to communist
style matchbox flats in vertical estates (which ironically are being
demolished in UK in some places). This would free up land for luxury flats
for the neo rich and double population of Dharavi. More crucially businesses
may relocate and suddenly what was a sustainable model (bus for the lack of
sanitation) changes to people being forced to commute on so called elevated
metro trains.
Cheers.
AJ
On 1 October 2010 03:43, AD <banmt at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dear Mr. Padiyar,
>> You wrote "According to global standards for rail based public
> transport, this is the only alternative available for meeting the demand
> - Tokyo, Hong Kong...".I thought some BRT systems if planned properly can
> technically get the same capacity as rail-based public transport.
>> For me, which technology (subway, light rail, BRT) is used is not that
> important
> because they are all mass transit. What government in a developing country
> should concern is how to use as less as possible money on mass transit
> option
> (of course with the same capacity) so that the extra money can be used to
> invest
> in improving pedestrian condition, which actually is the underlying
> prerequisite
> for any bus/rail trip.
>>> And also, as mentioned by Lee Schipper, any of these mass transit has to
> compete
> with motorcycles (or in other words - convenience). Therefore by taking the
> existing road space for its busways, BRT does the job better than its
> counterparts: subway or elevated rail.
>> With best regards,
>> AD.
>>> ________________________________
> From: Lee Schipper <schipper at wri.org>
> To: K P Padiyar <kppadiyar at gmail.com>; sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org> Sent: Thu, September 30, 2010 12:52:02 AM
> Subject: [sustran] Re: First urban railway route in Hanoi under
> construction
>> I think it is worth mentioning that Hanoi has at least twice the
> ownership rate of two-wheelers of any city in India, more than 1 two
> wheeler per household. That means that any urban rail way or BRT (one of
> each is under development) has to compete with one of the most motorized
> populations in the entire world. Here is a bit of background from my
> EMBARQ days.
>http://www.embarq.org/en/our-work/publications/hanoi-vietnam> Commuting distances are relatively short, one reason why the
> conventional bus system started 10 years ago and two wheelers are so
> popular, not to mention conventional bicycles and even more conventional
> feet. There is a master plan for developing more distant suburbs where
> an urban rail network could be useful, but that may depend on how the
> authorities deal with the cost of two wheeler fuel and whether there is
> a sensible way of charging for increasingly crowded road space in the
> main parts of Hanoi.
>>> Lee Schipper, Ph.D.
> Project Scientist, Global Metropolitan Studies, UC Berkeley
> Senior Research Engineer, Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, Stanford
> Univ.
> phone +1 510 642 6889
> fax +1 510 642 6061
> cell for emergencies +1 202 262 7476
>>> -----Original Message-----
> From: sustran-discuss-bounces+schipper=wri.org at list.jca.apc.org> [mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+schipper<sustran-discuss-bounces%2Bschipper>
> =wri.org at list.jca.apc.org] On
> Behalf Of K P Padiyar
> Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 10:44 AM
> To: sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org> Subject: [sustran] Re: First urban railway route in Hanoi under
> construction
>> Dear All,
>> Even though I have subscribed to this group since 2005, I have not
> participated in their discussions so far. With my background of more
> than 16 years of my service life in operating maintaining, planning and
> designing suburban rail services of Indian Railways in Mumbai which
> today carries nearly 7 million passengers daily on 5 HRT corridors of
> which two carry main line passenger and freight traffic also. Design
> capacity of these corridors is 1.2 million for dedicated corridors and
> half that for mainline corridors, I felt emboldened to muscle in on the
> august array of transport specialists on this issue.
>> According to Demografia 2008, Hanoi is the second largest city of
> Vietnam with a population of 3 million with average population density
> of 154.5 persons/ha. According to global standards for rail based public
> transport, this is the only alternative available for meeting the demand
> - Tokyo, Hong Kong. Mumbai Moscow. (Dr. Kenworthy's work for UITP and WB
> in 1990s.). Hanoi is planning for a capacity of 28000 pphpd which works
> out as 467 000 trips/day which is low compared to likely demand with CBD
> densities (Job +
> population) exceeding 300 as in Mumbai where Mumbai Island has a density
> of 800/ha.
>> Mumbai also had difficulties in acquiring land for Railways which was
> solved by promulgating TDR for the entire Mumbai Metropolitan Region
> with an estimated population of 21 million (17 million in 2001, 2011
> census results are not yet out). It was an innovative solution first
> issued by local State Government in 1991 and now copied by other metros
> of India. Even US is having such rules in some cities with heavy rail.
> Vietnam has a technical collaboration agreement with India, since it was
> was united and IR has participated in some of their projects for
> Railways.
> Mumbai has a separate Joint sector Corporation Mumbai Rail Vikas
> Corporation undertaking Railway component of Mumbai Urban Transport
> Projects Jointly funder by IBRD, Indian Government (through IR) and
> Maharashtra Government.
> They are available at www.mrvc.indianrail.gov.in Sanctioned projects
> under execution are about 2 billion dollars.
>> Members of the group needing additional information on Indian high
> capacity public transport systems can contact me and I will try my best
> to get it from original sources. IR uses wide bodied coaches 3667 mm and
> Dual traction system 1500 V. D.C. (under replacement) and 25 kV single
> phase 50 Hz system in Mumbai and other metropolitan areas. However Hanoi
> project as per data on the site quoted in the letter, mentions Chinese
> Government's aid for the project.
>> Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam has recently got Japanese aid for a Metro
> Rail System Project (Financed by the Japan Special Fund) under ADB aegis
> www.adb.org/projects/project.asp?id=39500.
>> With regards.
>> K. P. Padiyar
>>>> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "AD" <banmt at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 5:56 PM
> To: <sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org>
> Subject: [sustran] First urban railway route in Hanoi under construction
>> > Source:
> > http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/201009/First-urban-railway-route-i> > n-Hanoi-under-construction-937891/
> >
> >
> > Looking forward to see the fare and wonder how could they make it more
>> > tempted than that of riding a motorcycle for people.
> >
> >
> >
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> South').
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> equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries
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>